SAN BERNARDINO: Protestors disrupt bus line kickoff

Protestors who want Omnitrans to move natural gas tanks from their neighborhood marched on the sbX bus launch party April 22, 2014.--CASSIE MACDUFF/STAFF PHOTO

Noisy protesters crashed the launch party for San Bernardino’s new bus rapid transit line, sbX.

The group marched in a circle on the sidewalk beside the outdoor plaza where about 100 people gathered to celebrate completion of the $192 million bus line between Loma Linda and Cal State San Bernardino.

The protesters started chanting, drumming and using noisemakers before the Pledge of Allegiance, and continued through the national anthem, speeches and inaugural run of a bus filled with public officials and project designers.

“Can everybody hear?” emcee Alan Wapner asked after competing with the noise for a few minutes. “Because I’ll go take the megaphone right out of their hand.”

The jeers, cheers and chants of “Si Se Puede” continued as Wapner hailed sbX as a step toward transportation connectivity between bus, rail and pedestrians and acknowledged contributors to the project’s completion, funded in part by a voter-approved half-cent sales tax.

Wapner said sbX is a pilot project for bus rapid transit expected to be replicated throughout the region.

At one point, he commented through clenched teeth, “My patience is wearing very thin.”

But as disabled Army veteran Raymond Heath told the crowd, this is what we fought for: freedom of speech. (Hats off to you, Mr. Heath. Officials may have expected a celebration free of irritations. But this is America, the land of the free.)

Here’s what the protest is about:

Neighbors of Omnitrans’ headquarters are demanding that the transit agency remove liquefied natural gas and compressed natural gas tanks at the refueling station near their homes and an elementary school.

It’s not a new issue.

For more than a decade, people who live in the impoverished neighborhood on San Bernardino’s Westside have complained about odors from Omnitrans’ refueling facility.

They believed natural gas was escaping and making them and their children sick, causing headaches, nosebleeds, asthma and other ailments.

Now the concerns have escalated to fears the tanks could explode.

Protest signs, some written in Spanish, compared the underground tanks to a bomb in the neighborhood.

A news release from the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice later in the day raised the specter of the 2010 pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people, a recent apartment building explosion in Manhattan and a March 31 blow-up at an LNG plant in Plymouth, Wash.

Omnitrans spokeswoman Wendy Williams called it irresponsible for the environmental group to raise unnecessary fears, calling the refueling facility safe.

What touched off the latest round of concerns?

Protest leader Ericka Flores told me the neighbors believe Omnitrans has moved additional underground LNG tanks onto the site since a flurry of construction started more than a year ago.

When they went to Omnitrans board meetings, Flores said, the residents didn’t get straight answers.

I asked Williams whether tanks were added.

None were, she said. The construction was to build larger maintenance and bus-washing buildings to accommodate the sbX buses, which are twice the length of normal buses.

A temporary refueling island was added, too, she said.

But Williams said the neighborhood, and the environmental group, and a nearby school and Catholic Church, were notified with bilingual fliers and invited to an open house to learn about the project before it was built.

Flores said people weren’t notified.

I don’t know who’s right. I see a deep lack of trust and a breakdown in communication between the neighbors and the transit agency. What’s the solution? How about more talk and less hostility.

Regardless, the demonstration was a speed bump in the sbX launch.

When the ceremonial bus pulled in to dispense Mayor Carey Davis, former mayor Pat Morris, Cal State students and San Bernardino High School Cardinals, the passengers had to run a gauntlet of protesters.

Fun fact: Morris rode his bike from north San Bernardino, down busy Waterman Avenue (brave man) to board the bus two blocks from the celebration.

To Omnitrans’ credit, reflective “candlestick” markers were added to center medians. Too many motorists were running into the mid-road curbs. Now they’re more visible. Who said public agencies don’t learn from their mistakes?

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